Sandra LaFave
West Valley College
The Buddhist scripture
"The
Questions of King Milinda" contains interesting and very modern
arguments about personal identity through time. In effect, Buddhism
rejects the key element in folk psychology: the idea of a self (a
unified personal identity that is continuous through
time).
King Milinda and Nagasena
(the Buddhist sage) discuss ordinary problems of personal identity.
Nagasena says: "As Nagasena I am known, great King ... But ... this
word 'Nagasena' is just a denomination, a designation, a conceptual
term, a current appellation, a mere name. For no
real person can here be apprehended."
At first Milinda is
astonished. Milinda thinks persons obviously exist: "This Nagasena
tells me that he is not a real person! How can I be expected to
agree with that!" But Milinda gradually realizes that "Nagasena"
(the word) does not stand for anything he can point to: "Nagasena"
does not designate the hairs on Nagasena's head, nor the hairs of
the body, nor the "nails, teeth, skin, muscles, sinews, bones,
marrow, kidneys, ..." etc. In other words,
the term "Nagasena" has no obvious denotation. Milinda notes that
the term "Nagasena" also does not stand for Nagasena's form, or
feeling or perceptions, impulses, or consciousness, nor any
combination thereof. On the other hand, "Nagasena" does not stand
for anything other than ("outside the
combination") Nagasena's form, feelings, etc. Milinda concludes
that "Nagasena" doesn't stand for anything, and this is
puzzling.
Nagasena answers with one
of several arguments by analogy. The analogy is of the chariot.
Nagasena points out that we can't say exactly what a chariot is,
either; it's not the pole or the axle or the wheels, or the
flag-staff, yoke, reins, etc. But that
doesn't mean there are no chariots. Milinda realizes that "it
is in dependence on the pole, the axle, the
wheels, the framework, the flag-staff, etc., that there takes place
this denomination 'chariot' ..." Nagasena concludes: "It is just so
with me. In dependence on [the parts] there
takes place this denomination 'Nagasena.' ... In ultimate reality,
however, this person cannot be apprehended."
The discussion continues.
If we can't say what a person is, then how do we know a person is
the same person through time? Nagasena's answer is basically that
the question is badly formed, since you can give equally
good reductio ad absurdum arguments that we are
the same through time and that we are not the same.
WHY YOU'RE THE
SAME
To prove: You are the same
person.
Suppose you are different,
in the sense that you now are not the same person as
before.
Then you'd have no past --
no mother, no father. You do have a past, however, so it is absurd
to suppose you are different.
To prove: You are the same
person.
Suppose you are a different
person in the sense that you are completely different at every
moment.
Then you'd have many
mothers, fathers, etc. This is absurd,
QED.
WHY YOU'RE NOT THE
SAME
To prove: You are a
different person.
Suppose you are the same
person. Then you'd still be a child, a baby, etc., which is absurd,
QED.
THEREFORE YOU ARE NEITHER
THE SAME NOR DIFFERENT.
If you can't say what the
person is to begin with, and furthermore, you can't say whether a
person is the same throughout a single life,
then how can you say the same person is
reincarnated in another body? What could reincarnation possibly
mean?
Milinda asks: "When someone
is reborn, is he the same or different?" Nagasena answers,
"Neither." What's wrong here is our initial understanding of what
it means to be anything in a world governed by
dharma. The truth, says Nagasena, is that I'm not the infant or the
grown-up but instead both comprise "one unit depending
on ["in dependence on"] this very body." The relation of
dependency is the key (just as in the chariot analogy).
Nagasena explains the
dependency relation using two other similes:
1. The lamp and the flame. The flame is never the
same flame from moment to moment, though the lamp remains the same.
Consciousness is the flame. The lamp is cosmic dharma. "Dharma" is
from the Sanskrit word for "hold," "bear," support," or "sustain."
Dharma is the law that holds the world together. One principle of
dharma is the law of karma: the world is held together by the law
of dependent origination (things come to be depending on how things
were, and there is no difference between causal and moral
dependence). Another principle of dharma is the unity of all
sentient beings.
2. Milk / curds / butter / ghee. Milk becomes
curds, which become butter, which becomes ghee. Milk is not the
same as curds, butter, or ghee, but it's also not different. Those
things are because of it, according to the laws
of the universe. Something persists, in the sense that later things
would not be as they are if earlier things had been different. It's
misleading to say any nameable thing persists through all the
changes, but nameable things in the past do really continue to
influence things in the future.
Thus whatever constitutes
"me" is not something I can name or point to, but what I am
continues to affect what I become from one incarnation to the next.
What I am now continues in the sense that it continues
toaffect the unfolding of the universe according to
dharma.
BUT WHAT IS
CONTINUOUS?
Milinda asks, "Is there any
being that passes from one body to the next?"
Nagasena answers this
without paradox: "No!" We just established that there is the
universe and it is held together by the dharmas, which govern all
change (dependent origination) of things within the universe.
That's all there is. Change is the constant; "things" are not. So
the question is not well-formed.
You are "you" only because
you are still attached to things, and not "pure." You think of
yourself (you are conscious of
yourself) as someone who is separate (has the
illusion of real difference and independence from the rest of the
universe). You as this fictional separate being have desires: you
think you want things or states of affairs to be different from the
way they are. This constitutes being attached. As long as you
remain attached, you remain discontented, under the illusion of
separateness, and you remain part of the circle of change
(samsara). But when we say "you" remain attached and continue
through the cycle of samsara, we don'tmean
that there's some personal soul with particular traits that "goes"
from one body to another. It just means that what
comes later is causally/morally connected to earlier stuff
according to the laws of karma.
WHY SHOULD I ABANDON
ATTACHMENT, THEN, if I'm not going to be the same person who'll pay
for it in my future incarnation?
That's not the
point. If you're still attached, you're
paying right now. Your craving now IS your suffering. Give it up
and you have Nirvana now. The trick is to stop wishing you were off
the wheel, stop wishing, period. You must realize that your
true being is nothing, and has no
desires at all.
There's really no you, and
if there's no you, there are no beliefs or desires for you to have,
since according to folk psychology, beliefs and desires have
metaphysically subjective being (like pains, they exist only as
experienced).
The folk psychology picture
is profoundly misleading and believing it will make you
miserable.